Bank of New York Mellon's deal specialists must be working overtime. Reports have already linked Bank of New York Mellon as possible buyer to both Bank of America's Columbia Management and Barclays Global Investors (and its iShares unit), and now the custody bank's chief has confirmed that he's on the prowl for an asset management deal.

Bloomberg's Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam reports that BNY Mellon CEO Robert Kelly wants to buy asset managers, specifically asset managers with offerings they "don't have today."

Kelly put his deal-hunting in the context of BNY Mellon's "multi-boutique" asset management model, which currently manages about $880 billion and includes both actively managed mutual funds under the Dreyfus brand and institutional bond offerings via Standish Mellon. BNY Mellon also custodies about $19.5 trillion.

Last month the Boston Globe named Mellon as a logical buyer for Columbia, and the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal both listed BNY Mellon as a bidder for all of BGI (not just iShares) (see MFWire, 5/12/2009, 5/15/2009 and 5/18/2009). 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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